Summary

The episode begins with Applejack showing off her jumping skills in front of Applebloom. Later, Rainbow Dash is trying to attach a banner to town hall when Raincloud (a sentient storm cloud) fires a bolt of lightning at her. Next, Mayor Mare announces to the town that Applejack has won a pair of i-Pod Nanos which she is willing to share with the town so that they may be distracted from the giant tentacle monster (which is revealed to be destroying the town's laser tag arena).

Afterwards, the town is about to throw Applejack's return party when suddenly, Raincloud delivers a letter which details reveal that Applejack having been taken hostage and that there are no i-Pod Nanos. Despite this, the town is convinced that Applejack simply refused to return since she does not love them anymore. Twilight and the rest of her friends set off to retrieve Applejack and bring her home. They arrive at Con-Junction where they immediately spot Applejack. Applejack explains as best she could how she is working against her will for a pony called Whiplash. She tries to tell her friends to go back to town to and get Big Macintosh to help and she hints that she has a bomb attached to her person. Her friends on the other hand, completely ignore all of this.

After that, Applejack is in the cherry orchard carrying out Whiplash's will when Pinkie Pie appears. Pinkie Pie decides to sing "one of the songs she sang to her parents" to Applejack. Pinkie Pie then realizing how strange the sentence is rephrases it as "one of the songs they sang to me". Applejack gives Pinkie Pie permission to sing as long as it isn't "one of those sad [songs] with a deceptively cheerful tune". As it turns out, it is, and so it tortures Applejack's mind. Thus, Applejack agrees to go home with her friends but only at "five after one" the next day, a statement of which she 'Pippington Promises' to. Upon said time, the rest of the Main 6 make their way to Applejack's room when a glip in the space-time continueum occrus as an unforseen consequence of Pinkie Pie's experiments. Because of this the group ends up walking down the hallway twice and the second time results in Rainbow Dash's voice changing.

Applejack, as it turns out, has left already; so her friends set off to hunt her down. They catch sight of Applejack escaping by a four-horse carriage and so they grab a cart and chase after her. During the chase, Applejack's friends try to bargain with Applejack's drivers with bits of junk. However Applejack turns out to be richer (with two sticks of gum and a rubber band). Pinkie Pie manages to jump onto Applejack's carriage whereupon Applejack reveals to her that her plan was to show her friends what she was trying to tell them earlier by escaping town (mentioning "five ponies chasing after one" as a loophole in her Pippington Promise), and thus blowing herself up. Pinkie Pie, somewhat understanding of this decides to start practising trust exercises. She jumps backwards expecting Rarity to catch her. However, Rarity, being caught by surprise, is instead knocked off the cart with Pinkie Pie.

Applejack manages to lose her friend by escaping past the world's longest train; but Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash simply fly over it. Rainbow Dash knocks Applejack to the ground as well as the bomb off of her. It has a timer on it counting down from 2 mins. Rainbow Dash then asks if Applejack plans to finish eating it. Applejack tries once more to explain to her friends about how she was hoping to spare their lives by taking the bomb with her, but at this point her friends flat out tell her that they aren't listening to a single word she is saying. They explain to her that they will eventually "figure out how to fix the hole in the roof, but without her they will never be able to fix the hole in [their] hearts." Raincloud then comes, picks up the bomb off the ground, flies up into the sky, and blows up.

Applejack then uses her newfound writing skills to write a letter to Princess Celestia. She tells the Princess that the lesson she learned is that it is sometimes better to just play dumb.

There are numerous references to previous episodes: The tentacle monster is the result of the mistake Fluttershy made whilst attempting to resurrect Smooze in the episode Lunar Slander. Pinkie Pie stating how she "messed with time before" is in reference to the portal she used to resurrect her dead parents. The line where Pinkie Pie says "the song I sang to my parents" is a reference to how she successfully resurrected them as infants in the episode 6, Lunar Slander.

The Dole Corporation is also mentioned in this episode; it is revealed that while the FiW team has reclaimed the rights to the term 'apple', copyrights to the 'buy some apples' censor icon are still being held by Dole, and the team has been forced to subliminally advertise for Dole in future episodes.